Vixen in Velvet (The Dressmakers 3)

For a moment, listening to her companions, Leonie had forgotten, too.

Not everything this night was playacting. The children’s fête was genuine enough, and many of its sponsors would have begun arriving soon after the doors opened. Before long, news of Theaker and Meffat’s disgrace would be making the rounds of the supper boxes and travel along the walks. Because of the charity fête, Vauxhall would hold a larger than usual proportion of the Upper Ten Thousand.

Mrs. Williams looked about her. “Do you know, in the circumstances, I think it politic to make myself scarce,” she said, and quickly suited action to words.

Meanwhile Lord Swanton summoned the waiter. As soon as he’d paid for their meal and offered a distracted farewell and thanks, the poet made himself scarce as well.

When they’d both moved out of sight, Leonie made her leisurely way toward the festivities. Lisburne, she knew, would be with the other men. Since her shop had been implicated in the scandal, people would understand her taking part in Theaker and Meffat’s exposure.

But beyond that, she’d be most unwise to let herself be seen in Lisburne’s company. After tonight’s events, she could expect her customers to start returning. Best not to jeopardize that by arousing suspicions that her participation in the unmasking wasn’t purely a business matter.

She had to trust Tom Foxe to resist printing Theaker’s insinuations about Lisburne and her. But Foxe owed her a great favor. Rarely did he get to actually witness the beau monde’s inner workings.

She supposed she ought to go home. But the last time she’d been to Vauxhall, she hadn’t been able to enjoy it.

She could indulge herself for a little while. It was early yet, and since this was a charity event, at higher prices, the chances of encountering drunken riffraff . . .

The sound of familiar laughter broke her train of thought.

It came from nearby, but it was hard to pinpoint. She had paused near the orchestra, which was playing at the moment. Many people were dancing.

She saw Lady Gladys waltzing with Lord Flinton.

Leonie walked a little nearer to the dancing.

Her ladyship looked very well, in a shade of copper not all women could wear successfully. As she’d done time and again, Marcelline had created the illusion of a smaller waist, this time with judicious use of a V-line above and an upside-down V below, where the robe opened over the dress. Pretty embellishments softened the severity of the lines.

Equally important, though, was Lady Gladys’s mien. She carried herself with confidence and good nature. Her face would never be pretty but her smile was, as was the sparkle in her eyes.

Lord Flinton seemed to be captivated.

Leonie had dressed elegantly, of course, for tonight’s performance. Knowing she looked well always increased her confidence. More important, one must advertise the shop’s wares whenever possible. But she’d never had a chance to watch her protégée at a social event. And so she made herself inconspicuous, in the way she and her sisters had learned to do, and slipped in among the bystanders to observe her and her sister’s handiwork.

When the dance was over, Lord Flinton escorted Lady Gladys back to her chaperons—two matrons who seemed not much older than their charges—and others of their party.

Lady Alda was there, in an unbecoming puce gown that looked horribly like the work of Mrs. Downes’s shop—also known as Dowdy’s—which fancied itself a Maison Noirot rival. As Lady Gladys rejoined her group, Lady Alda made a remark, and Lady Gladys answered with uplifted eyebrow.

Leonie drew nearer, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then Lady Gladys laughed, and whatever she was saying caused the others to gather about her.

Leonie moved closer.

Lady Gladys was reciting a comic poem. She was acting it out, much in the way Leonie had done at the New Western Athenaeum with “The Second Son.”

I have sung to a thousand;

And danced with no fewer;

And sighed in the hearing

Of hundreds, I’m sure.

But my sighs and my songs

Have all failed most outrageously;

Nor have my poor toes

Turned out more advantageously;

And the season—the season—

It’s nearly all over;

And spite of my schemings,

I can’t get a lover.

To archery meetings

In green have I—

—have I—

She faltered and broke off as a gentleman advanced upon the group. He was a tall, slender gentleman who wore his flaxen hair overlong and dressed theatrically. The hair, as he swept off his hat, was tousled. His coat was a bit rumpled, and Leonie knew his trousers had a rip at the knee, thanks to colliding with the floor when he tackled Sir Roger Theaker.

The orchestra having paused, Leonie could make out some of the exchange, though Lord Swanton’s voice didn’t carry as clearly as Lady Gladys’s did.

But Leonie had no trouble perceiving that he was speaking and everybody else was behaving as though he was a snake charmer and they a basket of cobras. She saw his color rise as he spoke. Something about “do me the honor.” Lady Gladys was blushing, too, the deep pink washing down over her well-displayed bosom.

The orchestra began playing again.

And Lord Swanton led her out into the dancing area.

And everybody who knew them simply stood watching in disbelief as Lord Swanton danced with Lady Gladys Fairfax. For a time the pair was silent. But at last her ladyship said something. His lordship looked at her for a moment. Then he laughed. The bystanders, their friends and family and acquaintances, looked at one another.

Then, by degrees, they made up pairs, and began to dance. All except Lady Alda, who walked away in a huff.

From behind Leonie came a low, familiar voice. “Well, it seems he knows how to further his acquaintance with a girl, after all.”

Lisburne had watched Leonie much in the way he’d watched her at the British Institution. Then, though, she’d seemed to belong. At present, she stood on the fringes of the crowd, and it seemed to him that she stood on the outside looking in, like a shopgirl standing outside a great house where a party was in process.

No one seemed to notice her, which made no sense, even given the extraordinary sight of Swanton dancing with Gladys.

How could anybody fail to notice Leonie? Tonight she wore a blue gown of some silk as light as a cloud. Enormous sleeves as usual, and one of those vast shawl sorts of things that covered the tops of the sleeves and made women’s shoulders seem enormous. It tucked into her belt, which, in contrast to the sleeves and skirt, seemed to circle a waist no bigger than a thimble. She’d tied a lacy thing about her neck, with a bow at her throat and tassels hanging from the corners of the lacy thing. Her coiffure rose in a fantastic arrangement of knots and braids adorned with ribbons and flowers.

A dizzying vision, and the more so because he knew what was underneath. He knew what she felt like under his hands. He knew what her skin smelled and tasted like . . .

But if he thought about that he wouldn’t be able to think at all.

And it seemed he needed to.

Why wasn’t she dancing with the others? She ought to be one of them. One sister was a duchess. The other was a countess.

And she was . . . a lady.

How obvious that had been when she’d stood in the theater with Dulcie Williams.

Dulcie was a decent enough actress, and no doubt did a good job of playing ladies on the stage. She wasn’t vulgar. On the contrary.

But she wasn’t a lady.

Leonie was a lady.

It seemed so obvious now.

That pig Theaker.

Any idea who your pretty vixen is, really? Who any of them are, her and her sisters?

Lisburne had me

t only two of them but reason told him they must be three extraordinary women.

And this one had astounding self-control.

She didn’t turn at the sound of his voice, and if he hadn’t got into the habit of watching her so closely he wouldn’t have discerned the slight change in her posture, the alertness.

“One can only hope her ladyship won’t toy with his affections,” she said.

“This doesn’t mean you’ve won our wager,” he said. “Swanton’s been infatuated with Gladys’s voice this age.”

“Has he been, indeed?” Finally she looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and innocent.